The Pittsburgh Steelers defense is going to look a little bit different on Sunday.
They’ll be without star pass rusher T.J. Watt after he suffered a partially torn pec last Sunday against the Cincinnati Bengals.
He’s set to be out for the few games and there’s a chance he could return sometime in October or November.
The Patriots are the Steelers’ next opponent and the latter have to go up against Bill Belichick.
Belichick was asked about the Watt injury and he doesn’t think it’s going to change their strategy too much.
“Look, they’re a good defensive team. They’re obviously better with Watt, but it is what it is. I can’t imagine they’re going to revamp their whole defense in one week. I don’t know why they would,” Belichick said via NESN. “They play a lot of people anyway. They played a lot of people in the Cincinnati game. They played over 100 plays on defense. So I think they’re probably pretty comfortable with what they have because they played those guys, and they played pretty well against, obviously, a good offense. So I wouldn’t expect to see a lot of dramatic changes, like go to a whole big new scheme or anything. I don’t think that’s really their style. But we’ll see. I don’t know.”
The Steelers will have Malik Reed starting in Watt’s place. He’ll start opposite of Alex Highsmith, who’s the other Steelers’ starting outside linebacker.
The Steelers will be looking to have a similar performance in this contest as it did last Sunday. In that game against the Bengals, the defense sacked Joe Burrow seven times and forced five turnovers.
Meanwhile, the Patriots will be hoping that they can score more than seven points after losing to the Dolphins 20-7 on Sunday.
Kickoff from Acrisure Stadium will be at 1 p.m. ET.